This collection aims to think critically about agency and explore the relationship between agency and coercion in greater depth. In academic, activist, and policy circles alike, feminist work has re-focused attention onto women as agents rather than as passive victims of overwhelming structures of male institutional power, or less capable of exercising agency by virtue of their class, race, gender or culture. These broadly positive moves are not without risks. Most notably, they can encourage a triumphalist disregard for constraints through an exclusive emphasis on "discovering" agency even in the least favorable situations, thereby obscuring domination, inequality, and subordination. So how does bringing agency and coercion into closer interplay impact our understanding of the two? How might the stories of feminist agency change if we locate agency and coercion on the same intellectual frame? What would it mean to disrupt the existing constellation of ideas accompanying agency so as to include coercion, subordination and oppression alongside ideas of freedom, autonomy, and independence? How do we theoretically negotiate agency and coercion in conditions of deep inequality? This collection thinks through these questions in a range of regional, intellectual, ethical and political contexts.

A largely unexplored area, this is an innovative and original examination of bisexual spaces as places that are defined by both geographical boundaries and cultural significance. Hemmings applies the ideas of queer theory as well as social and cultural geography in her fascinating investigation into the spaces and places of bisexual life. Specifically focusing on Northhampton, MA and San Francisco, she draws on interviews with community members and the town histories showing how and why they have developed into safe places for gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities.

Contents:
List of Illustrations. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Bisexual Landscapes 2. Desire By Any Other Name 3. Representing the Middle Ground 4. A Place to Call Home

At no point in recorded history has there been an absence of intense, and heated, discussion about the subject of how to conduct relations between women and men. This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to these omnipresent issues and debates, mapping the present and future of thinking about feminist theory.

The chapters gathered here present the state of the art in scholarship in the field, covering: Epistemology and marginality Literary, visual and cultural representations Sexuality Macro and microeconomics of gender Conflict and peace. The most important consensus in this volume is that a central organizing tenet of feminism is its willingness to examine the ways in which gender and relations between women and men have been (and are) organized. The authors bring a shared commitment to the critical appraisal of gender relations, as well as a recognition that to think 'theoretically' is not to detach concerns from lived experience but to extend the possibilities of understanding. With this focus on theory and theorizing about the world in which we live, this Handbook asks us, across all disciplines and situations, to abandon our taken-for-granted assumptions about the world and interrogate both the origin and the implications of our ideas about gender relations and feminism. It is an essential reference work for advanced students and academics not only of feminist theory, but of gender and sexuality across the humanities and social sciences.

Drawing on recent feminist discussions, this collection critically reassesses ideas about agency, exploring the relationship between agency and coercion in greater depth and across a range of disciplinary perspectives and ethical contexts.

In Considering Emma Goldman Clare Hemmings examines the significance of the anarchist activist and thinker for contemporary feminist politics. Rather than attempting to resolve the tensions and problems that Goldman's thinking about race, gender, and sexuality pose for feminist thought, Hemmings embraces them, finding them to be helpful in formulating a new queer feminist praxis. Mining three overlapping archives-Goldman's own writings, her historical and theoretical legacy, and an imaginative archive that responds creatively to gaps in those archives -Hemmings shows how serious engagement with Goldman's political ambivalences opens up larger questions surrounding feminist historiography, affect, fantasy, and knowledge production. Moreover, she explores her personal affinity for Goldman to illuminate the role that affective investment plays in shaping feminist storytelling. By considering Goldman in all her contradictions and complexity, Hemmings presents a queer feminist response to the ambivalences that also saturate contemporary queer feminist race theories.

In Considering Emma Goldman Clare Hemmings examines the significance of the anarchist activist and thinker for contemporary feminist politics. Rather than attempting to resolve the tensions and problems that Goldman's thinking about race, gender, and sexuality pose for feminist thought, Hemmings embraces them, finding them to be helpful in formulating a new queer feminist praxis. Mining three overlapping archives-Goldman's own writings, her historical and theoretical legacy, and an imaginative archive that responds creatively to gaps in those archives -Hemmings shows how serious engagement with Goldman's political ambivalences opens up larger questions surrounding feminist historiography, affect, fantasy, and knowledge production. Moreover, she explores her personal affinity for Goldman to illuminate the role that affective investment plays in shaping feminist storytelling. By considering Goldman in all her contradictions and complexity, Hemmings presents a queer feminist response to the ambivalences that also saturate contemporary queer feminist race theories.

"Why Stories Matter" is a powerful critique of the stories that feminists tell about the past four decades of Western feminist theory. Clare Hemmings examines the narratives that make up feminist accounts of recent feminist history, highlights the ethical and political dilemmas raised by these narratives, and offers innovative strategies for transforming them. Drawing on her in-depth analysis of feminist journals, such as "Signs," "Feminist Review," and "Feminist Theory," Hemmings argues that feminists portray the development of Western feminism through narratives of progress, loss, and return. Whether celebrating the move beyond unity or identity, lamenting the demise of a feminist political agenda, or proposing a return to a feminist vision from the past, by advancing these narratives feminists construct a mobile "political grammar" too easily adapted for postfeminist agendas. Hemmings insists that it is not enough for feminist theorists to lament what is most often perceived as the co-optation of feminism in global arenas. They must pay attention to the amenability of their own stories, narrative constructs, and grammatical forms to broader discursive uses of gender and feminism if history is not simply to repeat itself. Since citation practices and the mobilization of affect are central to how the narratives of progress, loss, and return persuade readers to suspend disbelief, they are also potential keys to telling the story of feminism's past, present, and future differently.

"Why Stories Matter" is a powerful critique of the stories that feminists tell about the past four decades of Western feminist theory. Clare Hemmings examines the narratives that make up feminist accounts of recent feminist history, highlights the ethical and political dilemmas raised by these narratives, and offers innovative strategies for transforming them. Drawing on her in-depth analysis of feminist journals, such as "Signs," "Feminist Review," and "Feminist Theory," Hemmings argues that feminists portray the development of Western feminism through narratives of progress, loss, and return. Whether celebrating the move beyond unity or identity, lamenting the demise of a feminist political agenda, or proposing a return to a feminist vision from the past, by advancing these narratives feminists construct a mobile "political grammar" too easily adapted for postfeminist agendas. Hemmings insists that it is not enough for feminist theorists to lament what is most often perceived as the co-optation of feminism in global arenas. They must pay attention to the amenability of their own stories, narrative constructs, and grammatical forms to broader discursive uses of gender and feminism if history is not simply to repeat itself. Since citation practices and the mobilization of affect are central to how the narratives of progress, loss, and return persuade readers to suspend disbelief, they are also potential keys to telling the story of feminism's past, present, and future differently.